ORDER PLACED

Tim Blair

–,
Friday,
December,
28,
2012,(8:24pm)

Angry Amazon book reviews: “This is the most disgusting cover and should be taken out from any book display … The cover of this book is absolutely disgusting, revolting and insensitive … I don’t think I can hold it in my hand without cringing, and I cannot imagine the ‘book’ being displayed where young children are present.”

Anyone who tends crops and mows fields, as we do here on the farm in upstate New York, knows that the carnage is immense each time in terms of bunnies, voles, toads, myriad smaller forms of life. You cannot make a salad without causing chaos and death in the millions. I reckon it makes for more death-in-the-field to feed a vegetarian than it does a carnivore. I have therefore switched to a diet of acorns and wild berries. Seaweed on Saturday nights.

Have Your Say

Sensational. Looks like my amazingly beautiful cousin Sarah. Don’t know what the problem is, unless it’s the uncooked pork on the shoulders but, really, you’d have to named Goldstein to take offence to that.

I don’t eat pork in any form (faint swinish cheers audible from the far paddock) or shellfish, but everyone makes their own choices, ideally.

Yeah, I know, more for all y’all.

As for the book cover, I worry more about anyone who doesn’t know where their food comes from, and what’s involved in the process of getting it to their plates.

And that includes vegans and vegetarians.

Leigh replied to Guran
Sat 29 Dec 12 (09:11am)

I think the problem is because she hasn’t got a hairnet on while she is handling food.
I love the last paragraph :
“And for every veggo who sniffs, “Well, no animal died to make my salad”, the Prick says, how much of your average lettuce or carrot farmer’s day do you reckon is spent killing, trapping, poisoning, or otherwise making life seriously unpleasant for cute little bunnies and birdies who might get to the produce before the produce gets to market?”

David replied to Guran
Sat 29 Dec 12 (10:21am)

Well Guran my name isn’t Goldstein but I am Jewish and I find nothing offensive in it at all. As a young lad in uniform one didn’t have too much choice in what the cook decided to give you or what was in the Field Rations so while my Christian mates ate bacon I just had ftat nosed mutton. When you are hungry if its good you eat it. Kot tuv.

Ah yes, but what the hell has he got against berries, acorns and seaweed?

Frankly, I believe the Berries Acorns and Seaweed Coalition should take out a fatwah against this bloke. After all he discriminates against them and kills them.

Who’s to say a wild berry isn’t entitled to feelings?

Half the problem here is that people aren’t taking responsibility for their offendedness.
You CHOOSE whether to feel offended or not.
I’m so fed-up with this ‘victim’ mentality—“Oh BOOHOO, you offended me with your meanie hate-speech/radio program/cookbook. I demand an apology.”

Well, from now on, let’s call the BS for what it is.
When people are whining about how offended they feel, ask them, “Is that your victim story?”

Best buy the book thereby getting it away from public display in the shop.
And you can always call back tomorrow to harvest any more copies of the offensive tome.
Author happy, publisher happy, bookshop happy, deluded fascist complainer happy, win-win-win-win!

Now how to hold a whale for photographing?

Jono replied to Simple Simon
Sat 29 Dec 12 (10:07am)

This is not like, I don’t like watching a television show so others shouldn’t . Animals in the billions around the would are been tortured, deprived basic life’s liberty and then slaughtered. There is a show I would like you to watch, it is called ‘Earthings’ or at least read the IMDB (international movie database) viewer reviews. You want to partake in this debate, I dare you.

Simple Simon replied to Simple Simon
Sat 29 Dec 12 (02:55pm)

WhaleHunt Fun, such an elegant solution!

Jono, The highlighted comments about the book are rather more similar to the Mary Whitehouse approach to television than you allow. They are both attempts to manipulate strong emotions rather than presenting evidence for their views. Although the book cannot be banned (yet), the mobbing behaviour in comments is an attempt to dissuade others from considering the book by giving it an inauthentic and artificially low rating, based on little more than ‘I don’t want to see this and neither should you!’.

As for your ‘dare’ (I haven’t been ‘dared’ since primary school!), I’ve had the debate and found the arguments in favour of vegetarianism and associated issues lacking substance and persuasive power. (I am always open to new arguments, but you present none.)

I have also found the arguments against hypocrisy, intellectual conformism and dogma to be overwhelming.

One of the presuppositions of meaningful debate is to grant that one’s own point of view may not be the only accurate, legitimate, meaningful or reasonable one.

Debate does not mean refusing to consider positions that differ from one’s own, nor does it mean berating others until they fall into step with you. To do so is to argue in bad faith.
Consider the possibility that yours is not the only possible position for a reasonable person to hold, I dare you.

MudCrab replied to Simple Simon
Sat 29 Dec 12 (04:47pm)

I had a google for Earthings as you recomended Jono and found all sorts of interesting things about surge protection and burying large iron rods in the ground.

Interesting if you are into Sparky stuff....

I think found some comments about a movie called ‘Earthlings’ on IMDB

it shows only one side of the argument with purposely laid out misinformation

and

uses a juxtaposition of irrelevant images, just to cause sensation

and

The film starts off weak by bringing up a series of complex issues that it fails to explore adequately,

Which all probably just goes to prove that bacon is yummy for a bucket load of people no matter what River Phoenix’s lesser known brother wants us to think.

Leigh replied to Simple Simon
Mon 31 Dec 12 (05:21am)

Yes Simon, Jono needs to get some pork on his fork.
And again Jono, you need to read the last paragraph to understand food,ANY food does not just mysteriously appear on the supermarket shelves.

Agh! I am fed up to the nostrils with the lectures and scoldings of blue-veined old maids of “progressivism”. Attempting to make other people miserable is their chief joy in life, as they’ve renounced all others, and I’ve had enough of it. Pig meat, here I come!

You’re on to it Becky.Of course,this does not only apply to the pig photo but to all things in society these days.There are those offended by anything,and everything---what pisses me off the most? They are not frightened to tell you! In fact they insist on telling you.Like you-Pig meat,Yum.

Jono replied to RebeccaH
Sat 29 Dec 12 (09:59am)

I am not a progressive nor am I interested in making your life miserable. I believe in freedom of choice and I hate this government however regarding your dietary choices there is a third party who does not have a choice. I am sure that pig on the front cover of the book never had the choice. He was born in a piggery, had his front teeth, tail and maybe testicles removed without pain relief. Lived in a sow stall deprived of all contact for the majority of it’s life. Transported on a truck to a slaughterhouse for possibles days crammed in with other pigs where it was stunned, bathed in scolding hot water and had its fur ripped off. I am sure the pigs choice was never taking into account. But freedom of choice only refers the choices you make without thought of others. That sounds more like a progressive.

Roasting a whole pig—search the web for images—is well worth the effort. Emphasis here is on the effort, though. About half the time the folks doing this for the first time do not understand the relationship of mass and heat (coals, fire, smoke), thereby scheduling dinner for a time when the main course is only half-cooked. Remember, all good things come to those who wait (or something like that). April Bloomfield’s book will be money well spent for anyone planning a pig roast. Oh, those in charge of the roasting will appreciate donations of beer and wine, consumption of which much is required to maintain vigilance. Cheers.

Don’t let Mike Bloomberg hear you saying that if you visit NYC. You’d probably end up in one the jails he’s building for people who don’t comply with his mandated eating requirements. He’s outlawed sugar, salt, popcorn, hotdogs, soda, donuts, cheeseburgers and lots more.

Mike replied to Sam L.
Sat 29 Dec 12 (11:19am)

Sam, sounds like you need to go out and buy that book immediately…

I have some vegan friends and by grud to they go on constantly about it.

It is mainly for that reason that whenever I have bacon to eat in the CrabCave, I post about it in Facebook.

When I was a kid, sometimes you’d see a butcher’s window where they’d taken the front half of a pig carcass and dressed it up in a butcher’s apron, glasses, hat, etc. We kids used to think that was pretty cool. It was from one of those butchers that we learnt the answer to the riddle : “What has two legs and bleeds a lot?” Answer: “Half a pig.”

I hear that Amazon are culling their review sections to get rid of those excessively pro reviews (all the writer’s friends, relatives, publishers and assorted obsessives) so hopefully they’ll cull the “hate” reviews as well.

You have pointed the finger at the bad-mannered knobs who carry on like pork-chops about bloody everything. It’s all about them you see, and it’s all about them because they have been badly brought up.

No-one has told them that it is egregiously offensive to take offence when no offence was intended. That is the bedrock of good manners. Unfortunately bad-mannered nitwits rule.

When I was a young boy in Ballarat, Mum would send me down the butchers to buy meat for the family and bones for the dog. I remember seeing all the pigs, sheep and cattle on hooks on rails around the walls, some cut down the middle. There was no wall behind the counter. Meat was cut on the spot. Bandsaws, Cleavers, etc. The floor was covered in a layer of sawdust to soak up blood. Never did I see this as a bad thing.

No skinny vegan is going to take meat away from this big carnivore…

Maybe it’s why this current generation is dumb as dogs**t. Not enough meat…

I have just seen the image you refer to and it is a good advert for turning children against eating meat. One day they see the little piglets and then they see the pig/let dead, they say:
Mummy why is that woman carrying that pig across her shoulders, Mummy - why is that lady carrying that pig, why can’t it walk, Mummy - it is dead and the lady is going to cook it for dinner!!! the little child starts crying and refuses to eat meat because the little animals have to die for him/her to eat them.
I allow everyone their right to like or dislike, but to ridicule those holding an opposite opinion is denying those their right to hold an opinion.

I wouldn’t ever be into “denying those their right to hold an opinion” because then I wouldn’t have their childish stupidity to amuse me.

Toiling Mass replied to Alan of Brisbane
Sat 29 Dec 12 (12:11pm)

What if you have an opinion about their opinion?

The woman has produced a book. She is being described as some kind of monster. But we must be careful not to offend those who describe her thus?

Docker replied to Alan of Brisbane
Sat 29 Dec 12 (10:20pm)

On the other hand, children raised on a farm quickly learn the relationship between animal husbandry and putting chow on the table. Then need no specialist to teach them about the food chain that mother nature built.

I was first tasked with cutting the head off of a chicken and dressing it for the kitchen at age 11. Mum cooked it with dumplings and we ate it for dinner. None of us were traumatized at all. Imagine that.

I’ve seen some amazing conversions of vegetarians in the winter when nothing vegie is to be found but moss and fungus. They even suddenly discover the true moral value of leather boots.

sdog replied to Alan of Brisbane
Sun 30 Dec 12 (01:49am)

“I allow everyone their right to like or dislike, but to ridicule those holding an opposite opinion is denying those their right to hold an opinion.”

No, it’s not.

You’re welcome.

I wonder if these leftards would complain if the original cover of the Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer was republished under a different writers name - a conservative writers name, and with a different title.